Chapter Five: Healing and Wholeness

IX. The Eternal Fixation

83 The idea of
"set" is among the better psychological concepts. Actually,
it is used quite frequently in the Bible and also in this course
under many different terms. For example, "God will keep him in
perfect peace whose mind is stayed (or set) on Him," a statement
which means that God's peace is set in the Holy Spirit because it
is fixed on God. It is also fixed in you. You, then, are fixed
in the peace of God. The concept of "fixation" is also a
very helpful one which Freud understood perfectly. Unfortunately, he
lost his understanding because he was afraid and, as you know all too
well, fear is incompatible with good judgment. Fear distorts thinking
and therefore disorders thought.

84 Freud's system of
thought was extremely ingenious because Freud was extremely
ingenious, and a mind must endow its thoughts with its own
attributes. This is its inherent strength, although it may misuse its
power. Freud lost much of the potential value of his thought system
because he did not include himself in it. This is a
dissociated state because the thinker cuts himself off from his
thoughts. Freud's thought was so conflicted that he could not
have retained his sanity as he saw it without
dissociation. That is why the many contradictions which are quite
apparent in his thinking became increasingly less apparent to
him. A man who knows what fixation really means and yet does
not yield to it is terribly afraid.

85 Fixation is the pull of
God, on whom your mind is fixed because of the Holy
Spirit's irrevocable set. "Irrevocable" means
"cannot be called back or redirected." The irrevocable
nature of the Holy Spirit's set is the basis for His unequivocal
Voice. The Holy Spirit never changes His mind. Clarity of
thought cannot occur under conditions of vacillation. Unless a
mind is fixed in its purpose, it is not clear. Clarity
literally means the state of light, and enlightenment is
understanding. Enlightenment stands under perception because
you have denied it as the real foundation of thought. This is
the basis for all delusional systems.

86 The concept of fixation as
Freud saw it has a number of learning advantages. First, it
recognizes that man can be fixated at a point in development which
does not accord with a point in time. This clearly could have
been a means toward real release from the time belief, had Freud
pursued it with an open mind. Freud, however, suffered all his life
from refusal to allow eternity to dawn upon his mind and enlighten it
truly. As a result, he overlooked now entirely and merely saw
the continuity of past and future.

87 Second, although Freud
misinterpreted what the Holy Spirit told him, or better, reminded him
of, he was too honest to deny more than was necessary to keep his
fear in tolerable bounds as he perceived the situation. Therefore, he
emphasized that the point in development at which the mind is fixated
is more real to itself than the external reality with which it
disagrees. This again could have been a powerful release
mechanism had Freud not decided to involve it in a strong
defense system because he perceived it as an attack.

88 Third, although Freud
interpreted fixation as involving irrevocable "danger
points" to which the mind could always regress, the concept can
also be interpreted as an irrevocable call to sanity which the mind
cannot lose. Freud himself could not accept this
interpretation, but throughout his thought system, the
"threat" of fixation remained and could never be eliminated
by any living human being. Essentially, this was the basis of
Freud's pessimism, personally as well as theoretically. He tried
every means his very inventive mind could devise to set up a form of
therapy which could enable the mind to escape from fixation forever,
even though he knew this was impossible.

89 This knowledge plagued
Freud's belief in his own thought system at every turn because he
was both an honest man and a healer. He was therefore only partially
insane and was unable to relinquish the hope of release even
though he could not cope with it. The reason for this amount of
detail is because you are in the same position. You were
eternally fixated on God in your creation, and the pull of this
fixation is so strong that you will never overcome it. The reason is
perfectly clear. The fixation is on a level so high that it cannot
be surmounted. You are always being pulled back to your
Creator because you belong to Him.

90 Do you really
believe you can make a voice that can drown out His? Do you
really believe that you can devise a thought system which can
separate you from His? Do you really believe that you can plan
for your safety and joy better than He can? You need be neither
careful nor careless; you need merely cast your cares upon Him
because He careth for you. You are His care because He loves you. His Voice reminds you always that all hope is yours because of His care. You cannot choose to escape His
care because that is not His Will, but you can choose to
accept His care and use the infinite power of His care for all
those He created by it.

91 There have been many
healers who did not heal themselves. They have not moved mountains by
their faith because their faith was not whole. Some of them have
healed the sick at times, but they have not raised the dead. Unless
the healer heals himself, he does not believe that
there is no order of difficulty in miracles. He has not learned that
every mind God created is equally worthy of being healed because God created it whole. You are merely asked to return
to God the mind as He created it. He asks you only for what He
gave, knowing that this giving will heal you. Sanity is
wholeness, and the sanity of your brothers is yours.

92 Why should you listen to
the endless insane calls which you think are made upon you when you
know the Voice of God Himself is in you? God commended His
Spirit to you and asks that you commend yours to Him. He wills to
keep it in perfect peace because you are of one mind and spirit with
Him. Excluding yourself from the Atonement is the ego's
last-ditch defense of its own existence. It reflects both the
ego's need to separate and your willingness to side with its
separateness. This willingness means that you do not want to be
healed.

93 But the time is
now. You have not been asked to work out the plan of salvation
yourselves because, as I told you before, the remedy is not of
your making. God Himself gave you the perfect correction for
everything you have made which is not in accord with His holy
Will. I have made His plan perfectly explicit to you and have also
told you of your part in His plan and how urgent it is that you
fulfill it. There is time for delay, but there need not be. God weeps
at the "sacrifice" of His Children, who believe they are
lost to Him.

94 I have already told you
that whenever you are not wholly joyous it is because you have
reacted with a lack of love to some Soul which God created.
Perceiving this as "sin," you become defensive because you
expect attack. The decision to react in this way, however, is
yours and can therefore be undone. It cannot be undone
by repentance in the usual sense because this implies guilt. If you
allow yourself to feel guilty, you will reinforce the error
rather than allow it to be undone for you.

95 Decisions cannot be
difficult. This is obvious if you realize that you must
already have made a decision not to be wholly joyous if
that is how you feel. Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to
recognize that you actively decided wrongly but can as
actively decide otherwise. Be very firm with yourselves in this,
and keep yourselves fully aware of the fact that the undoing process,
which does not come from you, is nevertheless within
you because God placed it there. Your part is merely to return
your thinking to the point at which the error was made and give it
over to the Atonement in peace. Say to yourselves the following as
sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond
fully to your slightest invitation:

96 I must have decided wrongly because I am not at peace.
I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
I will to decide otherwise because I want to be at peace.
I do not feel guilty because the Holy Spirit will undo
all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
I will to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for Me.

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